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I posted a question that received multiple up & down votes within the first few minutes.

I assume the first few down-votes were from my question not specifying what I meant by rounding. But after specifying that, my question started receiving more up-votes, followed by more down-votes.

However, there were no more comments added to my question to explain why it was receiving down-votes. I also noticed all of the answers were receiving down-votes, without any comments as well.

Is there any rules on "excessive down-voting" or anything being done to stop it? It makes me feel like not posting any more questions if the community does not explain the reason they do not like my question, however if my question is that bad I guess you can down-vote it without a comment, but down-voting a perfectly good answer to my question seems like terms for losing down-voting privileges. If I answered this question and it was down-voted, I would delete my answer after a day or so as I do not want to lose reputation for no reason.

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    \$\begingroup\$ It looks liek somebody has downvoted every single answer, so it's not just you. \$\endgroup\$
    – Riker
    Mar 7, 2018 at 21:45
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    \$\begingroup\$ Unfortunately, people are under no obligation to explain their voting, and SE doesn't force users to vote one way or another. There isn't really much you can do, unfortunately \$\endgroup\$
    – caird coinheringaahin g Mod
    Mar 7, 2018 at 21:45
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    \$\begingroup\$ @cairdcoinheringaahing Other than not post or participate in the site anymore :D \$\endgroup\$
    – DevelopingDeveloper
    Mar 7, 2018 at 21:46
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    \$\begingroup\$ @DevelopingDeveloper Well, that's an extreme. Don't think to much about downvotes, although a good thing to do when you get unexplained downvote is to leave a comment asking the downvoters to perhaps explain why they've downvoted. It works more often than you'd expect. \$\endgroup\$
    – caird coinheringaahin g Mod
    Mar 7, 2018 at 21:47
  • \$\begingroup\$ @cairdcoinheringaahing Sorry I was just kidding :P I am not leaving anytime soon, and I agree just asking works. It looks like in this case there is just someone that down-voted every single thing, and it will happen. \$\endgroup\$
    – DevelopingDeveloper
    Mar 7, 2018 at 21:52
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    \$\begingroup\$ SE automatically reverses serial voting, though the post does not mention whether that includes downvoting of all answers on a question. \$\endgroup\$
    – Laikoni
    Mar 7, 2018 at 22:20
  • \$\begingroup\$ Just as info, I posted an answer on the question, and within 30 seconds it was down-voted. \$\endgroup\$
    – DevelopingDeveloper
    Mar 7, 2018 at 22:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ @DevelopingDeveloper About that, we (recently) don't like people answering their own question too soon, as (they can get an unfair advantage of preparing their answer before posting their question), although (if it's sandboxed other users can do that too). \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Mar 8, 2018 at 1:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ On the other Q&A sites, if someone downvote too many answers too quickly, they probably do so without reading the answers (and thus are not voting based on answer quality), that's bad. So far Stack Exchange automatically reverses serial voting targeted on one user, as Laikoni mentioned. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Mar 8, 2018 at 1:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ If there's a single answer with no downvotes, it's possible this is a case of "strategic downvoting" -- basically, posting an answer, and recognizing that it's so bad that the only way to get it higher up in the list is to tear other answers down. It's heavily frowned upon, because you're judging answers based on your wishes to have yours listed higher instead of, you know, anything remotely related to those answers, but I'm not sure it's technically voting abuse. (That said, I can't see vote counts, so I have no idea how true this is.) \$\endgroup\$
    – Nic
    Mar 8, 2018 at 6:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ Every answer prior to (and including) this one with the exception of 4 have a downvote. And all have exactly 1 downvote. Definitely sounds like strategic downvoting. I suspect a particular poster, but the evidence is circumstantial at best. \$\endgroup\$
    – Draco18s no longer trusts SE
    Mar 12, 2018 at 19:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ Just remind yourself that it costs the downvoter reputation per downvote. \$\endgroup\$
    – mbomb007
    Mar 12, 2018 at 19:31

1 Answer 1

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Nothing

Downvotes are a part of the system and if you are active on the site for long enough you are bound to receive them. Stressing endlessly over downvotes doesn't do much good for you, especially if the person who downvoted hasn't left a reason.

Some people suggest leaving a comment demanding an explanation along the lines of

@downvoters Why?

but I'm not really sure how effective these are. I tend to avoid them because they are usually just noise, but I have seen them work in some scenarios.

If you only have one or two downvotes and a positive score I would spend a moment to see if there is an obvious reason someone might downvote. If you can see one great! You can now try and fix it. however if you can't I would suggest allowing it to slip from your mind.

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    \$\begingroup\$ IMO, the only time you should ask for downvote justification is when you've posted an answer on meta. Those comments can prompt the debate that needs to happen there. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nathan Merrill
    Mar 8, 2018 at 15:56
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    \$\begingroup\$ If I see a comment on a challenge or an answer that asks why there are downvotes, I look through and try to sum up what can be improved (or comment to say I see no reason for a downvote otherwise). I like downvotes: the cycle downvote -> asking why -> someone else explaining results in improvements that might not have been suggested if the downvoter had not been able to vote anonymously. \$\endgroup\$
    – trichoplax is on Codidact now
    Mar 11, 2018 at 8:24

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